Links 25/05/2024: Section 230 and Right of Publicity Violations by Microsoft (Which Attacks Performance Artists)
Contents
- Leftovers
- Science
- Education
- Hardware
- Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
- Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Privatisation/Privateering
- Security
- Defence/Aggression
- Transparency/Investigative Reporting
- Environment
- Finance
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
- Censorship/Free Speech
- Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
- Civil Rights/Policing
- Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
- Digital Restrictions (DRM) Monopolies/Monopsonies
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Leftovers
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Mere Civilian ☛ My blog cost USD44 a year
In 2020, I started this blog and detailed my setup back then. Almost 4 years later, I wanted to provide an update on my setup.
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Garrit Franke ☛ Going from self hosted to managed software
Some time ago I was heavily into self hosting my own software. Over time though, it became apparent that maintaining these services is a huge burden. I either abandoned most of the services or found a replacement that suits my needs and saves me time that's better spent on other things in life.
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Thomas Rigby ☛ Slash Pages
While they're not a new thing, slash pages are having a Renaissance with some funky new branding and their own site courtesy of the pathologically productive Robb Knight.
I had a look at the list of suggested pages to see what I can add to my own site.
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Steve Ledlow ☛ My Blogging Workflow
I keep a Markdown file of things I’d like to write about someday. That list varies from just loose ideas in a few words to something more thought out if I don’t want to lose the details if it’s something I’ve given more thought to. Occasionally, I’ll add bits to existing ideas, but most of the time the way they go in is the way they stay until I write out a post.
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Science
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The Register UK ☛ Computer model helps unravel part of the solar cycle mystery
In the science journal Nature this week, a team led by Edinburgh University's Geoff Vasil published a paper that might hold some clues. Using numerical analysis, they propose that a physical phenomenon dubbed magnetorotational instability plays a central role whereby the magnetic fluid slows as it gets further from the center.
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Science Alert ☛ Cosmic Glitch: Scientists Discover an Anomaly in The Universe's Gravity
Was Einstein wrong?
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Science Alert ☛ Dark Matter Telescope Reveals Its First Color Images, And They're Amazing
We've never seen the Universe like this before.
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Science Alert ☛ Daily Cannabis Use Overtakes Alcohol For First Time in The US
A major shift in the drug landscape.
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Science Alert ☛ Hundreds of Huge Stars Disappeared From The Sky. We May Finally Know Why.
Like a giant magic trick.
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Education
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Pro Publica ☛ Idaho’s Salmon School District Finally Gets Bond Approval to Replace Crumbling Elementary
The Salmon School District in remote Central Idaho will finally get a new school.
After decades in which voters rejected every bond the district asked for, the community on Tuesday approved a $20 million bond to build a new pre-K-through-8 school with a resounding 72% support.
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Hardware
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Nvidia's Hey Hi (AI) chip sales in China hampered by U.S. sanctions, but gaming GPU shipments increase
Industry insiders reveal that Nvidia's Chinese Hey Hi (AI) market throne is beginning to shake, though GPU shipments have increased by more than 30%.
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Nvidia adds an Adobe to its market cap in 24 hours
Shares of Nvidia surged over 9% on Thursday, building on a stunning rally as its bumper revenue forecast reinforced investor confidence in the AI-driven boom in chip demand.
The semiconductor bellwether’s surge translated to an addition of around US$218-billion in market value on the day, according to LSEG data, the second-largest single-day market cap gain in history on Wall Street.
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Nico Cartron ☛ Replacing my OPNsense gateway hardware by a Protectli appliance
Of course I immediately looked for a replacement unit, and a search gave me some nice results about Protectli, a company that specialises in small-size units for gateways/VPN etc.
Even though my current gateway had 4 NIC ports, I knew 2 would be enough - Protectli had such a model, but I nonetheless went for their Vault 4 Port model.
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The Register UK ☛ iFixit ends partnership with Samsung over DIY repair program
In reality, iFixit grew unhappy at the high cost and low quantity of spare parts from Samsung, which it says made repairs so expensive that users would rather buy a new phone than fix their existing model. Which would suit Samsung. Additionally, the phones weren't getting any easier to repair over time and still relied on glued-together components.
There were also other problems, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens explained to The Register. Chiefly, those independent repair shops had to sign a secret contract with Samsung to participate in the program and receive replacement parts.
That agreement, dubbed the Independent Repair Provider contract, required shops to do eyebrow-raising things such as report customers' contact and device details, as well as a description of what needed fixing, to the South Korean giant; immediately take apart those devices if any unofficial components were already inside; and tip off Samsung to the use of third-party electronics. The folks at 404media say they've got a copy of that agreement.
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Health/Nutrition/Agriculture
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Antivax tech bro Steve Kirsch “reinvents” challenging a scientific consensus
Regulars have probably noticed that my contributions over the last couple of weeks have been pretty sparse. There’s a good reason for that—actually two. First, I had a grant application deadline to try to keep my lab funded. That, as you might understand, takes precedence over my little hobby here. Secondly, there was a family health issue that occurred last weekend, making finishing my grant even more difficult than usual. I won’t give any details other than to say that the family member is doing better and I submitted my grant application yesterday, which frees me to try to get back to normal around here. However, given my time constraints, I couldn’t do anything too strenuous for today…at least not yet. That’s why it’s a good thing that there was a particularly brain dead post by tech bro turned rabid antivax propagandist Steve Kirsch that I’ve been meaning to address. In it, he “reinvents” what it means to challenge a scientific consensus…very, very badly. Indeed, he claims to have found A better way to challenge scientific consensus. See if you can find the flaws in his “reasoning” (such as it is) before I apply a dose of well-deserved not-so-Respectful Insolence to it.
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Harvard University ☛ Altered states through yoga, meditation more common than thought
“Altered states were most often followed by positive, and sometimes even transformational effects on well-being,” Sacchet added. “With that said, negative effects on well-being were also reported in some cases, with a small subset of individuals reporting substantial suffering.”
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RTL ☛ RIP: 'Super Size Me' filmmaker Morgan Spurlock dies of cancer aged 53
"Super Size Me," which was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature, followed Spurlock as he subsisted on a diet of only McDonald's fast food for a month.
The witty, caustic movie helped spur a change of tack by fast-food corporations to include healthier options on their menus amid growing concern over rising obesity rates in the United States.
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New York Times ☛ Morgan Spurlock, Documentarian Known for ‘Super Size Me,’ Dies at 53
Mr. Spurlock was a playwright and a television producer when, during a Thanksgiving visit to his parents in 2002, he saw a TV news report about two girls who had sued McDonald’s, claiming it had misled them about the nutritional value of its hamburgers, fries and sodas, which caused them to gain significant weight.
“A spokesman for McDonald’s came on and said, you can’t link their obesity to our food — our food is healthy, it’s nutritious,” he told The New York Times in 2004. “I thought, ‘If it’s so good for me, I should be able to eat it every day, right?’”
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Science Alert ☛ Drinking Coffee May Help Protect Against Parkinson's, Study Says
Decades of data make a strong case.
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Science Alert ☛ Scientist Proposes a New Universal Law of Biology That May Explain Aging
Is instability essential for life?
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Science Alert ☛ Astronomers Discover The Largest Planet-Forming Disk We've Ever Seen
"What we found was incredible."
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New York Times ☛ Milk Containing Bird-Flu Virus Can Sicken Mice, Study Finds
The results bolster evidence that virus-laden raw milk may be unsafe for humans.
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New York Times ☛ As Rafah Offensive Grinds On, Hunger in Gaza Spirals
Aid officials and health experts expect famine this month unless Israel lifts barriers to aid, the fighting stops and vital services are restored.
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Pro Publica ☛ 9 Takeaways From Our 3M Forever Chemicals Investigation
After years of reporting on forever chemicals, ProPublica reporter Sharon Lerner had one question that still nagged at her. She knew that a handful of 3M scientists and lawyers had learned in the 1970s that the chemical PFOS had seeped into the blood of people around the country and that company experiments around that time had shown that PFOS was toxic. But the company kept making the compound until 2000. How, she wondered, had 3M kept its dark secret for decades? For years, no one who knew what had happened inside the company had spoken publicly. Then last year, a former 3M chemist reached out to Lerner. Here are nine takeaways from the investigation published by ProPublica and The New Yorker.
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Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)
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Nicolas Magand ☛ Could I use the iPad as my only computer?
There has been a lot of discussion recently about the new iPad, especially the new iPad Pros — or is it iPads Pro? — and how the hardware is way too powerful for the limited software of these devices. Many argue that the iPad should be just as capable as a Mac, so maybe it should be able to run MacOS, or vice versa. Their vision isn’t very clear the more one thinks about it, but I understand their point.
I think that it stems from a deep misunderstanding of what makes the iPad the iPad. Sometimes it’s not a misunderstanding per se, but it seems that some power users simply forgot what the iPad really is in the first place.
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USMC ☛ Marines say no more ‘death by PowerPoint’ as Corps overhauls education
Marines and those who teach them will see more direct, problem-solving approaches to how they learn and far less “death by PowerPoint” as the Corps overhauls its education methods.
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Heliomass ☛ Castro, the Lazarus App
It can happen to any piece of software. At some point, the developers stop maintaining it. For a while, it continues to soldier on under its own steam. But then the bugs start appearing, impeding the experience and gathering in numbers. Eventually an API changes or something on the back-end breaks, and it’s game over.
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TechTea ☛ TechTea - Generative AI is for the idea guys by Rach Smith
Most of us know generative AI is some kind of techbro dystopian fantasy and scam. Unfortunately venture capital is still pumping money into it so we are a long way off from the days where we don’t hear about it every day.
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Cory Dransfeldt ☛ Your new tool will be used in the worst possible way
We're rushing headlong towards shoving generative AI into everything and the data center costs that come with it will make the climate worse. It is, arguably, convenient to type something in a box and get your wish granted but — and this is a big one — it's not very reliable. Suggesting users put glue in pizza at the top of the most visited site on the internet isn't a great look.
It's a tool they say — use it right. Some people will and they may get some value though, I'd argue, not commensurate with the cost. It will — and already has — enabled some pretty bad behavior at scale. We're flooding the internet with AI sludge at an ever-increasing rate while simultaneously making it harder to navigate the internet. We're shoving AI into the search tools we'd use to wade through the rising tide of garbage.
Garbage is rushing into the internet and we're getting garbage right back out.
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Matt Birchler ☛ I’ve defended Google search for years, but their AI answers suck so hard
Count me as one of the people who still thinks Google’s search results are pretty great. Maybe it’s just what I search for, but I can’t think of the last time I searched for something and couldn’t find it with Google.
However, getting to those results can be annoying.
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Vox ☛ Generative AI like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Sora can’t replace human creativity
The wrinkle in AI executives’ plot to supplant human creativity is that so far, consumer AI tools are not very good at making art. Generative AI creates content based on recognizing patterns within the data it was trained on, using statistics to determine what the prompter is hoping to get out of it. But if art is more meaningful beyond the images or words that comprise it or the money that it makes, what good is an amalgam of its metadata, divorced from the original context?
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Google to infuse AI search results with advertising
Ads will appear in a “sponsored” section within AI Overview based on the query’s relevance and information, the company said in a blog post.
Google has been looking to extend its dominance beyond traditional search advertising to emerging generative AI tech. It aims to boost its ad sales, a major source of revenue for the tech giant, by integrating AI in its search engine.
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Paul Robert Lloyd ☛ Protocols, platforms and priorities
Recognising that AI is controversial – rightly so given the unethical means its models have been developed and the untold amounts of energy required to run them – Manton added an option for users to disable all AI features across the platform. Given these concerns and more, I’m keeping this option firmly turned off.
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Microsoft Simplifies Management of Kubernetes Clusters in Microsoft trap Azure Cloud [Ed: This FOSS-hostile network is promoting Microsoft now]
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Ziff Davis ☛ TikTok Plans Major Layoffs in Global Marketing and Operations Workforce [Ed: They never profit, they're just a weapon of the Communist Party in Beijing. That's what they exist for.]
TikTok is preparing to lay off a significant portion of its workforce in a move expected to hit multiple departments. Learn more about the development and the continuing trend of job cuts that have hit the tech sector in recent years.
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This Week in Gaming Business - 10k Layoffs So Far This Year
This tally includes almost 2,000 layoffs across Microsoft, as well as 1,800 layoffs at Unity, 670 Electronic Arts layoffs, and around 600 Take-Two Interactive employees being cut from the company.
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Privatisation/Privateering
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Defence Web ☛ EU naval force frees vessel from pirates off Somalia - defenceWeb
The Liberia-flagged MPP Basilisk was boarded on 23 May by pirates in two small boats while sailing some 700 km southeast of Mogadishu, whilst en route to the United Arab Emirates from Cape Verde.
During the attack, the crew retreated to the citadel and the vessel drifted. The master, who had not retreated to the citadel, was reportedly shot in the arm, but the injury was non-life-threatening.
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Security
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Integrity/Availability/Authenticity
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Bert Hubert ☛ How sovereign do you want to be?
In conclusion, to make good decisions on sovereignty, it’s necessary to consider these three aspects separately. Because confidentiality, flexibility, and resilience all require different considerations and solutions.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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India Times ☛ AI relies on mass surveillance, warns Signal boss
"The AI technologies we're talking about today are reliant on mass surveillance," she said.
"They require huge amounts of data that are the derivatives of this mass surveillance business model that grew out of the 90s in the US, and has become the economic engine of the tech industry."
Whittaker, who spent years working for Google before helping to organise a staff walkout in 2018 over working conditions, established the AI Now Institute at New York University in 2017.
She now campaigns for privacy and rails against the business models built on the extraction of personal data.
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SSRN ☛ Zero Progress on Zero Days: How the Last Ten Years Created the Modern Spyware Market by Mailyn Fidler :: SSRN
Spyware makes surveillance simple. The last ten years have seen a global market emerge for ready-made software that lets governments surveil their citizens and foreign adversaries alike and to do so more easily than when such work required tradecraft. The last ten years have also been marked by stark failures to control spyware and its precursors and components. This Article accounts for and critiques these failures, providing a socio-technical history since 2014, particularly focusing on the conversation about trade in zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits. Second, this Article applies lessons from these failures to guide regulatory efforts going forward. While recognizing that controlling this trade is difficult, I argue countries should focus on building and strengthening multilateral coalitions of the willing, rather than on strong-arming existing multilateral institutions into working on the problem. Individually, countries should focus on export controls and other sanctions that target specific bad actors, rather than focusing on restricting particular technologies. Last, I continue to call for transparency as a key part of oversight of domestic governments' use of spyware and related components.
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Bitdefender ☛ Almost all citizens of city of Eindhoven have their personal data exposed
A data breach involving the Dutch city of Eindhoven left the personal information related to almost all of its citizens exposed.
As Eindhovens Dagblad reports, two files containing the personal data of 221,511 inhabitants of Eindhoven were accessible to unauthorised parties for a period of time last year.
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Michael Geist ☛ Filibuster of Bill S-210 Confirmed: Conservative MPs Put Privacy and Free Speech Online At Risk Over Release of Report
Last week I posted on concerns that Conservative MPs were engaged in a prolonged filibuster at the committee study of Bill S-210, a bill the government has called “fundamentally flawed” since it contemplates measures that raise privacy concerns through mandated age verification technologies, website blocking, and extends far beyond pornography sites to include search and social control media.
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Security Week ☛ Google Patches Fourth Chrome Zero-Day in Two Weeks
Exploited in the wild, Chrome vulnerability CVE-2024-5274 is a high-severity flaw described as a type confusion in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine.
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Defence/Aggression
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TwinCities Pioneer Press ☛ Youth programming key to keeping lid on summer gun violence, St. Paul community leaders say
Nonfatal shootings have dropped 64 percent compared to same period in 2021.
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France24 ☛ Top UN court orders Israel to halt Rafah offensive
The top UN court ordered Israel Friday to halt military operations in Rafah, a landmark ruling likely to increase international pressure for a ceasefire more than seven months into the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack.
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New Eastern Europe ☛ “One formula. Forty-eight nations”: a review of Russian Colonialism 101: How to Occupy a Neighbor and Get Away with It
More and more academics and scholars are making an effort to educate the wider public about the history of a vast empire that is influencing today’s current events. Scholars, academics and journalists are not focusing entirely on the British Empire. Rather, since February 2022, their focus has shifted to the brutal and violent legacy left by another former empire, whose existence threatened, oppressed and silenced numerous ethnic and indigenous identities. Russian Colonialism 101: How to Occupy a Neighbor and Get Away with It – An Illustrated Guide, edited by Maksym Eristavi, carefully dissects Russia’s genocidal, murderous legacy and uses clear facts and unique illustrations. Overall, the work reminds readers that colonialism is not a silent figment of the past.
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VOA News ☛ US political consultant indicted over AI-generated Biden robocalls
A Louisiana political consultant has been indicted over a fake robocall imitating U.S. President Joe Biden seeking to dissuade people from voting for him in New Hampshire's Democratic primary election, the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office said on Thursday.
Steven Kramer, 54, faces 13 charges of felony voter suppression and misdemeanor impersonation of a candidate after thousands of New Hampshire residents received a robocall message asking them not to vote until November.
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Digital Music News ☛ TikTok Planning Massive Layoffs Impacting Marketing & Operations
The United States is TikTok’s largest market, with around 80% of its $20 billion in revenue for 2023 coming from the region. Back in January 2024, TikTok cut around 60 workers from its sales and advertising teams—so this is the largest layoff announced this year at the company. Team members who are not laid off will join other teams under the TikTok umbrella. So far, ByteDance has not responded to any request for comment about the rumored layoffs.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ Companies Are Using the First Amendment to Dodge Regulations
Experts say the large corporations using this strategy are undermining efforts to regulate corporate behavior. They say these arguments limit states’ ability to act on matters not covered by federal law — and threaten everything from consumer warnings on toxic products to nutrition labels for restaurant food.
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The Age AU ☛ ‘We were fish in a barrel’: West Australian man recalls being shot by ISIS
Three Spanish travellers and three Afghans were killed and five others, including McDowell, were severely injured.
The Daesh/ISIS group has reportedly claimed responsibility.
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The Straits Times ☛ China ends war games, Taiwan details warplane, warship surge
Beijing said the exercises were "punishment" for Mr Lai's inauguration speech on May 20.
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Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine
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Insight Hungary ☛ US contacted the Hungarian government about the Russian hacker attack, US envoy says
RTL Klub asked US Ambassador David Pressman about the Russian hacker attack on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade two years ago. Pressman said the US has been in contact with the Hungarian government for some time over the Russian hacker attack."This incident shows the threat that Russia poses to our allies, the threat that Russia poses to the region, and the level of seriousness with which we need to respond."
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Latvia ☛ Russian oligarchs' business links exposed by Latvian Radio
Latvian Radio reported May 23 on how businessmen close to the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin have been expanding their businesses in Latvia for many years.
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JURIST ☛ Russia signs decree allowing seizure of US assets in Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Decree No. 422 on Thursday allowing Russia to seize US assets to compensate for damages resulting from Russian assets seized in the US.
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RFERL ☛ Putin Says Zelenskiy's Term In Office Over, Questions Legitimacy To Negotiate
President Vladimir Putin said on May 24 that Russia is willing to hold talks about the war in Ukraine, but questioned whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has the legitimacy to negotiate on Ukraine's behalf.
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NYPost ☛ Biden administration announces ‘urgently needed’ $275M military aid package for Ukraine
The package is the fifth tranche of aid for Kyiv since Congress approved $60 billion in additional funding last month.
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JURIST ☛ Norway to impose further travel sanctions on Russia citizens amid ongoing Russia-Ukraine war
The Norwegian government on Thursday shared its plans to restrict the entry of Russian citizens on tourist visas issued before Spring 2022 by Norway or by another European country.
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LRT ☛ Lithuanian FM sets out CoE presidency priorities
The fate of Europe is now being decided in Ukraine, and Russia and Belarus must answer for their crimes, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Friday, presenting the priorities of Lithuania’s presidency of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Committee of Ministers.
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RFERL ☛ Blinken To Visit Chisinau, Prague Next Week
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Moldova and the Czech Republic next week in a show of support for the two countries and to participate in a gathering of NATO foreign ministers.
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RFERL ☛ U.S. Announces $275 Million In New Military Assistance For Ukraine
The United States on May 24 announced an additional $275 million in military aid for Ukraine that Secretary of State Antony Blinken said was part of the United States' efforts to help repel Russia's assault near Kharkiv.
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RFERL ☛ Zelenskiy Hopes To See Central Asian Leaders At Swiss Peace Summit
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has challenged Central Asian leaders to put aside concerns of angering Russia, which considers the region part of its sphere of influence, and attend a summit in Switzerland next month aimed at achieving peace in Ukraine.
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RFERL ☛ Kazakh Woman Shouts 'Glory To Ukraine!' After Sentencing For Inciting Ethnic Hatred
A Kazakh woman, Qalima Zhaparova, shouted "Glory to Ukraine!" in a courtroom on May 24 after a judge in Kazakhstan's southern city of Shymkent found her guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and handed her a two-year parole-like sentence.
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RFERL ☛ Nearly 550 Children Confirmed Killed In Ukraine Since Start Of Russian Invasion
Ukraine's General Prosecutor's Office says 547 children have been confirmed killed and 1,348 wounded to various degrees of severity since the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion.
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RFERL ☛ 2 Killed In Missile Strike On Occupied Crimea, Russian-Appointed Official Says
Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of Ukraine's occupied Crimea, says two people were killed on May 24 in a Ukrainian missile strike on the peninsula.
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teleSUR ☛ Brazil and China Present Roadmap to End the Ukrainian Conflict
They propose holding an internationally recognized peace conference with equal participation from Moscow and Kiev.
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teleSUR ☛ Ukraine Hinders the Peace Process, Russian FSB Director Says
Bortnikov also claimed that Ukrainian military intelligence was directly involved in the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall.
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New York Times ☛ Ukraine Starts Freeing Some Prisoners to Join Its Military
Nearly 350 inmates have been freed under a new law that allows them to serve in exchange for the possibility of parole, the country’s justice minister said.
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Meduza ☛ Russian FSB director claims proof that Ukrainian military intelligence is ‘directly related’ to Moscow concert hall terrorist attack — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ Post-war problems Journalist Konstantin Skorkin on the key stumbling blocks for rebuilding Ukraine — and why money isn’t the biggest one — Meduza
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Meduza ☛ ‘Deal with the stronger enemy first’: Exiled Russian tycoon and opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky on the rumored Navalny negotiations, the politics of the 1990s, and his support for Prigozhin’s mutiny — Meduza
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Atlantic Council ☛ Massa in Forbes on Russia potentially stationing a nuclear ASAT in space
Forward Defense Deputy Director for Strategic Forces Policy Mark Massa was quoted in Forbes about the potential for Russia to station a nuclear ASAT in orbit.
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France24 ☛ Russia says Islamic State behind deadly Moscow concert hall attack
Russia on Friday said for the first time that the Islamic State group coordinated the March concert hall assault in Moscow, the country's deadliest terror attack in two decades.
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JURIST ☛ UK: 64-year-old charged with suspected terrorism related to Russia, appears in court
A 64-year-old man, identified as Howard Michael Phillips, was charged by the Metropolitan Police with offenses under the National Security Act 2023, according to a police press report issued Wednesday. He appeared at Westminister Magistrates’ Court on Thursday to confirm his address and date of birth.
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LRT ☛ EU condemns Russia for removing Estonia border markers on Narva River
The European Union on Friday condemned Russia for starting to remove buoys marking the country’s border with Estonia on the Narva River.
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RFA ☛ Tokyo, Seoul target North Korea-Russia arms deal with sanctions
The announcements follow similar steps by the US and Australia last week.
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RFERL ☛ Kadyrov Names Former Parliament Chief To Head Chechen Government
The former chairman of the Chechen parliament, Magomed Daudov, a close associate of Ramzan Kadyrov, has been appointed head of Chechnya's government.
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RFERL ☛ NATO Members Bordering Russia To Build 'Drone Wall'
Lithuania said on May 24 that the Baltic state and five other NATO members neighboring Russia had agreed to build a "drone wall" to defend their borders from "provocations."
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RFERL ☛ Russia Recalls Ambassador To Armenia In Further Sign Of Strained Relations
Russia recalled its ambassador to Armenia for consultations on May 24 amid a continuing deterioration of relations between the two longtime allies.
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RFERL ☛ Russian General Denied Release Pending Trial On Fraud Charge
A Moscow court on May 24 rejected investigators' recommendation to transfer jailed Russian Major General Ivan Popov from pretrial detention to house arrest.
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RFERL ☛ Romania Arrests Suspected Spy For Russia, Declares Diplomat Persona Non Grata
Prosecutors with Romania's anti-organized crime agency on May 24 announced the arrest of a Romanian man suspected of spying for Moscow since 2022.
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RFERL ☛ Activists Promoting Tatar Language, Culture Detained In Tatarstan
Activists in Russia's Republic of Tatarstan said on May 24 that police had detained Rafik Karimullin, the leader of the Azatliq (Liberty) youth organization, and the former leader of the banned All-Tatar Public Center (TIU), Zinnur Agliullin, after searching their homes.
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RFERL ☛ Estonia Summons Russian Diplomat Over Light Buoys Incident
Russian Charge d'Affaires in Estonia Lenar Salimullin was summoned to the Estonian Foreign Ministry on May 24 over an incident a day earlier on the Narva River that divides the two nations.
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teleSUR ☛ Finland and Latvia Open to NATO Nuclear Drills
They also expressed concern about Russia's alleged intention to adjust its maritime borders.
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Transparency/Investigative Reporting
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The Dissenter ☛ Unauthorized Disclosure: Mohamed Elmaazi
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Environment
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University of Michigan ☛ U-M wins competitions for waste and energy reduction
U-M’s Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses received top honors in the Campus Race to Zero Waste, wherein 150 colleges and universities across the United States and Canada seek to curtail waste production.
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VOA News ☛ Southern Africa worst hit by climate change
“In Botswana and Namibia, one of the biggest risks is that we are running the risk of completely losing the cattle industry," Engelbrecht said. "Because if the world should warm to about 3 degrees Celsius globally, it means in Botswana and obviously Namibia, the warming will be about 6 degrees Celsius, and that heat stress is so aggressive to the cattle that no breed can survive. All the cattle breeds will become unsustainable in terms of farming with them.”
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VOA News ☛ Beijing falsely rejects accusations of heavy damage to South China Sea ecosystem
That is false.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague did not recognize China’s claims over the Spratly Islands. China is the main polluter of the South China Sea where Beijing’s island-building, dredging and overfishing causes severe environmental damage.
Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), a project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, determined that China had played the “largest role” in the “South China Sea’s declining marine environment.”
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New York Times ☛ These Teens Adopted an Orphaned Oil Well. Their Goal: Shut It Down.
As many as 3.9 million abandoned and aging oil and gas wells dot the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The reasons for abandonment vary, but at least 126,000 of these wells are orphans, meaning there’s no longer an owner or company that state regulators can hold responsible for them. And many of the wells leak methane, a greenhouse gas that’s nearly 30 times as powerful as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over a period of 100 years, and even more powerful over shorter time periods.
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CS Monitor ☛ Officers combat and educate people on extreme heat effects
As the era of “global boiling” spawns ever deadlier heatwaves, a handful of heat tsars are working with officials in cities from Miami to Melbourne in a race against time to cool urban heat traps and prevent tens of thousands of deaths.
Seven chief heat officers – who all happen to be women – are working in Miami; Melbourne, Australia; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Freetown, Sierre Leone; and Athens, Greece to plant trees, create “pocket parks,” install water fountains, and teach people about the effects of extreme heat on the human body.
The role of chief heat officer was created three years ago by a U.S.–based think tank, but even in that short time the task has become more urgent as planet-heating emissions – largely from the use of coal, oil, and gas – are pushing temperatures into “uncharted territory,” according to scientists.
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The Revelator ☛ Can Collecting Stamps Help Rare and Endangered Species?
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Science Alert ☛ Singapore Airlines Emergency: How Dangerous Is Extreme Turbulence?
An expert explains the risks.
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Energy/Transportation
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Doug Jones ☛ Travel Report: Eurostar to Paris
The trip felt quick too. We were practically to Paris by the time I was able to upload a photo and make a short post. My seat included food, which was served before we even entered the Chunnel.
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CS Monitor ☛ As Memorial Day kicks off busy air travel, a new law boosts passenger rights
Under the new law, the FAA must hire more employees and give more breaks between shifts to retain burned-out workers in air traffic control and crew positions.
Another change is that airlines must offer refunds or book passengers on the next comparable flight at no extra cost if flights are significantly delayed or changed. Airlines also can't charge seat selection fees for children under 13 to sit with an accompanying adult.
Travelers can expect more accountability, says John Breyault, a vice president at the National Consumers League. He expects passengers will receive more than smartphone notifications to better communicate the status of delayed and canceled flights and appropriate refund options.
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DeSmog ☛ Science Denial Group Behind Surge of Online Attacks on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
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DeSmog ☛ Op-ed: We Need to Reclaim the Muddy Waters of the Louisiana Gulf Coast From the Climate Crisis
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Reuters ☛ Lucid to trim US workforce by 6% amid softening EV demand
Automakers have been trying to control costs as elevated inflation and high interest rates prompt consumers to cut back on relatively costlier EVs and pivot to cheaper, hybrid alternatives.
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Wildlife/Nature
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Omicron Limited ☛ Giving koalas a fair shot at survival
Enter Professor Beagley and his QUT-led research team. Working in close collaboration with senior vet Dr. Michael Pyne OAM at Currumbin Wildlife Hospital, Ken's team has developed—and after 10 years in the lab, is now successfully trialing—a vaccine in a localized population on the Gold Coast.
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BIA Net ☛ Turkey plans to euthanize stray dogs: 'Fascism needs animosity towards animals'
"It is no coincidence that street animals are being used as a distraction. Have we solved the problems of hunger and poverty that we are now discussing animals?" says DEM Spokesperson Perihan Koca.
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Finance
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TechCrunch ☛ Foursquare just laid off 105 employees | TechCrunch
Foursquare, the location-focused outfit that in 2020 merged with Factual, another location-focused outfit, is joining the parade of companies to make cuts
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The Record ☛ Tornado Cash co-founder convicted of laundering $1.2 billion by Dutch court
Alexey Pertsev's case has been seen as a bellwether pitting financial privacy advocates who view blockchain anonymity as a fundamental right against law enforcement intent on tracking the source of funds.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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New York Times ☛ ‘Drowning Street’: Sunak’s Election Campaign Gets Off to a Tricky Start
A day after being drenched during a pivotal speech, the prime minister announced another delay to his signature plan to send refugees to Rwanda.
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Atlantic Council ☛ Thirty years of South African democracy, visualized
On April 27, 1994, nearly twenty million South Africans voted in the country’s first-ever democratic election, electing Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) as the country’s president. Propelled into a new era, South Africa ushered in a new constitution, formed a multiparty National Assembly, and officially ended the policy of racial apartheid that had plagued the country for much of the twentieth century.
Thirty years later, up to twenty-eight million South Africans will cast ballots in the country’s seventh national election, one that could be the most consequential since the 1994 vote. The ANC, the party that pushed for the end of apartheid and has led South Africa’s government since 1994, has undoubtedly been responsible for many of the country’s accomplishments. But with growing concern among South Africans about issues such as corruption and inequality, the ANC risks losing its majority.
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The Register UK ☛ AWS pledges to spend €15.7B expanding Spanish operations
Amazon announced it will invest €15.7 billion ($16.9 billion) in the Spanish branch of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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India Times ☛ TikTok curbs state-backed media amid foreign influence concerns
TikTok on Thursday said it was putting restrictions on state-backed media to counter acts of foreign influence on the platform during an important election year in multiple countries.
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The Strategist ☛ Is the European Union too big for further enlargement?
Today, with a war raging on the EU’s doorstep, there is no question that Russia is dangerous. Just four days after the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine applied for EU membership. Driven by a sense of moral responsibility, rather than genuine enthusiasm for further enlargement, the bloc quickly granted it candidate status. There are now nine recognised candidates for EU membership, mainly in Eastern Europe.
But, while the 2004 big bang was a success, it cannot serve as a model for future enlargement. Each accession brings its own challenges, which demand nuanced solutions. One key challenge today, which has undermined the old EU enlargement narrative, is democratic backsliding in some member countries.
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India Times ☛ Govts, tech firms vow to cooperate against AI risks at Seoul summit
More than a dozen countries and some of the world's biggest tech firms pledged on Wednesday to cooperate against the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, including its ability to dodge human control, as they wrapped up a global summit in Seoul. These dangers also include an AI model that could potentially "evade human oversight, including through safeguard circumvention, manipulation and deception, or autonomous replication and adaptation", they added.
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India Times ☛ Wipro appoints Sarat Chand as MD for Northern Europe
Effecting a management rejig after the appointment of new chief executive Srinivas Pallia, the company had announced some incremental organisational changes last week, as reported by ET earlier. The firm had said Sarat, the current Wipro-Benelux MD, would lead Northern Europe.
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Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda
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New York Times ☛ How Right Wing Commentators Are Pushing Raw Milk Misinformation
Health officials are warning Americans not to drink raw milk as bird flu spreads through American cows. But some media figures and influencers are misleadingly suggesting that the product is safe or even healthier than traditional milk. And sales are growing.
Commentators on sites like Infowars, Gab and Rumble have grown increasingly vocal about raw milk in recent weeks. They see the government’s heightened concerns about the dangers as overreach.
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US News And World Report ☛ Cats on the Moon? Google's AI Tool Is Producing Misleading Responses That Have Experts Worried
“Yes, astronauts have met cats on the moon, played with them, and provided care," said Google's newly retooled search engine in response to a query by an Associated Press reporter.
It added: "For example, Neil Armstrong said, ‘One small step for man’ because it was a cat’s step. Buzz Aldrin also deployed cats on the Apollo 11 mission.”
None of this is true. Similar errors — some funny, others harmful falsehoods — have been shared on social media since Google this month unleashed AI overviews, a makeover of its search page that frequently puts the summaries on top of search results.
The new feature has alarmed experts who warn it could perpetuate bias and misinformation and endanger people looking for help in an emergency.
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Deccan Chronicle ☛ Fact Check: Viral clip of AAP minister Atishi saying power subsidy in Delhi will be discontinued is clipped
Fact Check: NewsMeter found that the video is clipped and is being shared with the context missing. In the longer version, Atishi blamed Delhi LG for delaying the file that will approve continuing power subsidy to Delhi residents.
We searched using specific keywords which led us to the longer version of the video posted by the news agency ANI on X (archive) on April 14, 2023.
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The Hill ☛ Fake X accounts posting about presidential election are proliferating: Research
Analysts from the Israeli tech company Cyabra used a subset of artificial intelligence machine learning to identify fake accounts and shared the results of the report with the news outlet ahead of the report’s release Friday.
The company found that 15 percent of X accounts that praise former President Trump and criticize President Biden on the platform are fake. Seven percent of the accounts that praise Biden and criticize Trump are fake, too.
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Reuters ☛ Fake US election-related accounts proliferating on X, study says
Analysts from Israeli tech company Cyabra, which uses a subset of artificial intelligence called machine learning to identify fake accounts, found that 15% of X accounts praising former President Donald Trump and criticizing President Joe Biden are fake. The report also found that 7% of accounts praising Biden, a Democrat, and criticizing Trump, a Republican, are fake. Cyabra's study is based on a review of posts on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, over two months beginning March 1. The review included analyzing popular hashtags and determining sentiment in terms of whether posts are positive, negative or neutral. The analysis shows that newly detected fake accounts had increased up to tenfold during March and April.
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VOA News ☛ IS turns to artificial intelligence for advanced propaganda amid territorial defeats
A new form of propaganda developed by IS supporters is broadcasting news bulletins with AI-generated anchors in multiple languages.
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Censorship/Free Speech
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EFF ☛ Wanna Make Big Tech Monopolies Even Worse? Kill Section 230
That’s one of the reasons we’re such big fans of Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230), a much-maligned, badly misunderstood law that protects people who run online services from being dragged into legal disputes between their users.
Getting sued can profoundly disrupt your life, even if you win. Much of the time, people on the receiving end of legal threats are forced to settle because they can’t afford to defend themselves in court. There's a whole cottage industry of legal bullies who’ll help the thin-skinned, vindictive and deep-pocketed to silence their critics.
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Press Gazette ☛ Media Bill passed with repeal of Section 40 press regulation threat
The Media Bill has been passed removing the threat of state-backed press regulation and modernising broadcasting regulations for the streaming age.
The bill includes the repeal of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which has yet to be enacted. Section 40 would have required news publishers to pay both sides’ costs in libel and privacy actions whether they won or lost unless they were members of a Royal Charter-backed press regulator.
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Techdirt ☛ Instead Of Banning Books, Idaho Library Decides To Ban Kids In Response To New Law On ‘Inappropriate Books’
“Donnelly Public Library was deeply saddened by the passing of [House Bill] 710,” the library posted. “Unfortunately, the ambiguous language in the legislation leaves us no options but to make some very drastic changes. In order to comply with the legislation we will be transitioning our Library to be an adult only library as of July 1.”
House Bill (HB) 710 allows parents or guardians to sue any school or public library for carrying materials that could be viewed as age-inappropriate and obscene. Libraries have to move books and materials or face lawsuits. Donnelly Public Library is a small facility in a literal log cabin.
“Donnelly [Public] Library is only 1024 [square foot],” said the library. “Our size prohibits us from separating our ‘grown up’ books to be out of the accessible range of children.”
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Variety ☛ Mohammad Rasoulof Earns Cannes Standing Ovation for Seed of Sacred Fig
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof‘s drama about a family in Tehran divided over the oppressive practices of the Iranian government, earned a rapturous 12-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere on Friday in the final hours of the festival. Rasoulof risked his life by appearing at the screening after fleeing Iran for Europe on May 13 to avoid going to prison. He’d been sentenced to eight years in jail by Iranian authorities for making a film that criticizes the regime.
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The Register UK ☛ OpenAI tells staff it won't claw back their vested equity
While similar offboarding agreements are not unheard of in certain parts of the world, putting already-vested equity at risk is unusual. Employees could stand to lose millions of dollars.
The company has recently suffered a flurry of departures. One of the former staffers, Daniel Kokotajlo, mentioned a document that he had to sign when joining the company and noted he has remained under confidentiality obligations. He did not, however, take on any more obligations on his way out.
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Vox ☛ OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk, but the new ChatGPT release can?
It turns out there’s a very clear reason for that. I have seen the extremely restrictive off-boarding agreement that contains nondisclosure and non-disparagement provisions former OpenAI employees are subject to. It forbids them, for the rest of their lives, from criticizing their former employer. Even acknowledging that the NDA exists is a violation of it.
If a departing employee declines to sign the document, or if they violate it, they can lose all vested equity they earned during their time at the company, which is likely worth millions of dollars. One former employee, Daniel Kokotajlo, who posted that he quit OpenAI “due to losing confidence that it would behave responsibly around the time of AGI,” has confirmed publicly that he had to surrender what would have likely turned out to be a huge sum of money in order to quit without signing the document.
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India Times ☛ OpenAI releases former staffers from non-disparagement clauses
Employees have been raising concerns about restrictions after Vox reported last week that some OpenAI staffers were asked to sign nondisparagement agreements tied to their shares in the company. This put employees at risk of having potentially lucrative equity clawed back if they spoke out against OpenAI and the company decided to enforce the nondisclosure and nondisparagement portion of the exit contract.
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Deutsche Welle ☛ Rasoulof defies Iranian regime with new film
Details of the director's harrowing escape were made public last week after he had already arrived safely in Germany. He left Iran over the mountainous border by foot after authorities sentenced him to a lengthy prison sentence, as well as a flogging.
Rasoulof's case dates to 2022, when he was arrested and imprisoned in Tehran's notorious Evin jail for signing a petition calling on security forces to "Lay Down Your Arms" and exercise restraint in response to street protests. He was temporarily released on the grounds of ill health last February but remained under house arrest and the threat of the original sentence.
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Reason ☛ Ending Section 230 Would Kill the Internet as We Know It
"How do you know when Section 230 is being misunderstood?" Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) quipped last year. "A politician is talking about it."
As Corn-Revere points out, "adopted in 1996, Section 230 was proposed as a way to counter efforts to censor internet speech." Prior to its passage, online platforms were treated as publishers of material posted on their sites if they made any attempt at moderation. They were incentivized to allow free-for-alls, or else scrutinize all content for legal liability—or not allow third parties to post anything at all.
Included in the Communications Decency Act, Section 230's important provisions survived the voiding of most of that law on constitutional grounds. It reads, in part: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Those are the 26 words credited as creating the internet by Jeff Kosseff's 2019 book. They also take the blame for what so many politicians hate about the online world.
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RFERL ☛ Slain Iranian Protester's Father Sentenced To 6 Years In Prison
Iran’s judiciary has sentenced Mashallah Karami, the father of executed protester Mohammad Mehdi Karami, to six years in prison on charges of endangering national security and "propaganda against the regime."
The human rights groups HRANA and Hengaw reported the verdict, which was handed down by the Karaj Revolutionary Court.
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RFERL ☛ Popular Iranian Rapper Tataloo Sentenced To Prison On Undisclosed Charges
Amirhossein Maghsoudloo, a popular Iranian rapper known by his stage name Tataloo, has been sentenced to prison, his lawyer and Iranian judiciary media reported, although specific details about the length of his sentence remain undisclosed.
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VOA News ☛ Chinese journalist freed after four years in prison for COVID reporting
Among them was Zhang Zhan, then a 36-year-old former lawyer who bravely chronicled the unfolding crisis in the city where the virus first surfaced.
Standing in front of a Wuhan train station in her final YouTube video on May 13, 2020, she voiced concerns about the human rights abuses she witnessed during the lockdown and criticized police involvement in enforcing containment measures.
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Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press
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VOA News ☛ In Texas, local news keeps communities connected
Alongside building trust, he wants to strengthen ties with the community, including by letting audiences participate in journalism.
The Texas Tribune hosts small gatherings where members of the community can ask questions directly to reporters.
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VOA News ☛ 5th journalist slain in Pakistan in 2024
Activists and colleagues said the slain journalist had consistently highlighted the civic issues plaguing impoverished Sindh in his reporting. Gadani also was critical of the powerful feudal lords in the region, which led to his repeated detention by the police, as noted by Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir in this social media post on X, formerly Twitter.
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ANF News ☛ Journalist Ehmed's mother: Release my son
211 days after Rojnews' Arabic editor Silêman Ehmed was kidnapped by the KDP government, his lawyers were able to meet with him for the first time on Wednesday.
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VOA News ☛ Journalist 'haunted' by AI deepfake porn video
Nabeelah Shabbir of the International Center for Journalism says AI is being weaponized to humiliate and discredit the work of women journalists. And women journalists are singled out for these attacks far more than their male colleagues.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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New York Times ☛ A Furious, Forgotten Slave Narrative Resurfaces After Nearly 170 Years
John S. Jacobs was a fugitive, an abolitionist — and the brother of the canonical author Harriet Jacobs. Now, his own fierce autobiography has re-emerged.
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AccessNow ☛ Access Now sues U.S. CBP and ICE agencies over migrant data
Leer en español. With the support of the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Access Now this week is suing the U.S.
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FAIR ☛ Are Impoverished Amazon Workers News to Bezos’ Newspaper?
Now, the Washington Post, owned by Amazon chair Jeff Bezos, has heard of the Center. The paper quoted it in a 2022 piece (12/10/22) about robots that led with the news that “Amazon has robotic arms that can pick and sort cumbersome items like headphones or plushy toys.” Oh, and “other companies are making progress, too.”
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Los Angeles Times ☛ Fontana to pay man $900,000 in murder that never happened
But a major problem with that confession soon emerged: Perez’s father was alive and safe. He had left the house he shared with his son and stayed overnight at a friend’s home near Union Station, according to court records. Later, he waited to catch a flight at Los Angeles International Airport to visit his daughter in Northern California. When police learned that Perez’s father was safe, they initially withheld the information and put Perez on a psychiatric hold.
“In my 40 years of suing the police I have never seen that level of deliberate cruelty by the police,” said Perez’s attorney, Jerry L. Steering. “After what I saw on the video of what they did to him, I now know that the police can get [anyone] to confess to killing Abe Lincoln.”
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The Register UK ☛ Uptime suggests shorter shifts to curb datacenter downtime
Uptime reported that four in ten surveyed datacenter operators experienced a major outage in the past three years as a result of human error. What's more, half of respondents of the institute's poll revealed these errors were caused by a failure to follow the correct procedures.
While Uptime acknowledges that regular training, practice, and experience can help to reduce the likelihood of outage-causing errors, one factor that's probably being overlooked is fatigue.
It's well understood that we're more likely to make mistakes when we're tired, which is bound to happen in a lengthy shift. While Uptime's datacenter staffing survey [paywalled] found that average shifts for datacenter workers ranged from eight to ten hours, this varied considerably by region.
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University of Michigan ☛ Free borrowing privileges for Native and Indigenous people
The new policy emerged from conversations connected to the library's new territorial acknowledgement, and is one small step in the library's efforts to honor the intent and spirit of the treaty upon which the university was founded.
"We acknowledge that the Bodewadmi, the Odawa, and the Ojibwe peoples lived here long before white settlers arrived, that the University of Michigan owes its creation to them, and that the commitments made by the university, including access to an education remain to be fully met,” said Lisa Carter, dean of libraries.
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Jacobin Magazine ☛ The US Military Refuses to Own Up to Killing Civilians
For hundreds of years, the US military has been killing people. It’s been a constant of our history. Another constant has been American military personnel killing civilians, whether Native Americans, Filipinos, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, and on and on. And there’s something else that’s gone along with those killings: a lack of accountability for them.
Late last month, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its congressionally mandated annual accounting of civilian casualties caused by US military operations globally. The report is due every May 1 and, in the latest case, the Pentagon even beat that deadline by a week. There was only one small problem: it was the 2022 report. You know, the one that was supposed to be made public on May 1, 2023. And not only was that report a year late, but the 2023 edition, due May 1, 2024, has yet to be seen.
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Pro Publica ☛ Wilcox County Residents Confront the Legacy of Segregation Academies
In the rural community of Wilcox County, Alabama, a Black principal is working to empower students in the segregated public high school. A Black woman is grappling with demons of the county’s past. A white woman is digging into that history. A white high school graduate is realizing the importance of interracial friendships. Others are using art to bridge divides.
ProPublica is examining the lasting effects of “segregation academies,” private schools that opened across the Deep South in opposition to desegregation. In our first story, we wrote about how the local academy in Wilcox is nearly all white while the public schools are virtually all Black. As a result, people don’t often know one another well. When we asked local residents how often they have ever invited someone of another race over for dinner, we heard variations of, “That would be very uncommon.”
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Internet Policy/Net Neutrality
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New York Times ☛ Russia Is Increasingly Blocking Ukraine’s Starlink Service
Operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink has been critical to the Ukrainian military since the earliest days of the war with Russia. Without the full service, Ukrainian soldiers said, they couldn’t quickly communicate and share information about the surprise onslaught and resorted to sending text messages. Their experiences were repeated across the new northern front line, according to Ukrainian soldiers, officials and electronics warfare experts.
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Google to build South Africa to Australia subsea cable called Umoja
The announcement coincides with a visit by Kenyan President William Ruto to Washington.
“Anchored in Kenya, the Umoja cable route will pass through Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, including the Google Cloud region, before crossing the Indian Ocean to Australia,” Google said.
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Digital Restrictions (DRM)
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CoryDoctorow ☛ Pluralistic: They brick you because they can
Digital is different, though. Analog companies can raise their prices, or worsen next year's model of their products. Digital businesses can travel back in time and raise the price of something you already own, but need to pay a "subscription" fee for. They can reach back in time and remove features you've already paid for. They can even go back in time and take away things you already own. The omniflexible, omnipresent digital tether between a device and its manufacturer creates so many urges that they can't resist: [...]
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Digital Music News ☛ Spotify vs. Apple Music: Who Has More Subscribers?
Of Apple Music’s total, 19.1 million are conventional individual subscriptions, with approximately 1.73 million coming from packaged Apple One subscriptions that include Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and iCloud for a discounted price.
Spotify’s approximate 50 million total is buoyed by Family, Duo, and Student plans, which carry certain multipliers or discounts for royalty-calculation purposes (for example, family plans receive a 1.75x multiplier applied by certain publishers, while Student plans have a 0.5x multiplier applied).
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The Register UK ☛ Feds file antitrust complaint to end Live Nation 'monopoly'
The government's complaint makes various claims about unlawful behavior designed to eliminate competition and monopolize markets. The allegations include: Colluding with rivals to avoid bidding against each other for artists and venues; retaliating against potential competitors and venues that work with rivals; exclusionary contracts; preventing venues from using multiple ticketing services; preventing artists from using venues if they haven't signed on for promotional services; and acquiring competitors.
Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-NJ-09) welcomed the lawsuit, citing his long opposition to the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which was approved in 2010 by the Obama administration.
"Live Nation and Ticketmaster should never have been allowed to merge," said Pascrell in a statement. "I beseeched the Obama administration to block it and have spent the last 15 years trying to right that wrong. If ever a company has been a corporate embodiment of Darth Vader and Lord Voldemort coming together it is Live Nation-Ticketmaster."
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USDOJ ☛ Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Sues Live Nation-Ticketmaster for Monopolizing Markets Across the Live Concert Industry | United States Department of Justice
The complaint, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Live Nation-Ticketmaster unlawfully exercises its monopoly power in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. As a result of its conduct, music fans in the United States are deprived of ticketing innovation and forced to use outdated technology while paying more for tickets than fans in other countries. At the same time, Live Nation-Ticketmaster exercises its power over performers, venues, and independent promoters in ways that harm competition. Live Nation-Ticketmaster also imposes barriers to competition that limit the entry and expansion of its rivals.
“We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters, and venue operators,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.”
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Patents
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Unified Patents ☛ Intellectual Ventures cloud networking patent monopoly challenged
On May 22, 2024, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 7,949,785, owned by Intellectual Ventures II LLC. The ‘785 patent monopoly relates to a system of communication via virtual networks.
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JUVE ☛ Düsseldorf Regional Court can proceed with trial after EPO upholds Moderna patent
After an inauspicious period for Moderna, the US pharmaceutical company’s litigation against Pfizer and BioNTech concerning mRNA vaccines is now picking up speed again. Following a ruling in Moderna’s favour from the EPO Opposition Division, infringement proceedings that had been suspended by Düsseldorf Regional Court can now resume.
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Unified Patents ☛ VDPP stitched image patent monopoly challenge instituted
On May 22, 2024, two months after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding substantial new questions of patentability on the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,426,452, owned and asserted by VDPP LLC, an NPE.
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Dennis Crouch/Patently-O ☛ USPTO Adapts to CAFC’s New Guidelines: What Design Patent Examiners Need to Know
On May 22, 2024, the day after the Federal Circuit’s en banc LKQ v. GM decision, the USPTO issued a memorandum to its examiners providing updated guidance and examination instructions in light of the court’s overturning of the long-standing Rosen-Durling test for determining obviousness of design patents.
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Micron loses patent monopoly trial, must pay rival Netlist $445 million in damages
A Texas jury decided that Micron Technology infringed on patents held by memory module-maker Netlist.
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Trademarks
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TTAB Blog ☛ The Top Ten Losing TTAB Arguments: 2001 Edition
In 2001, I first created my list of "The Top Ten Losing TTAB Arguments" in an article published in Allen's Trademark Digest. (pdf here). The article provided my commentary on the top ten losers, with exemplary cases. The 2024 list is slightly different. I do not claim that all of these arguments are automatic losers, but as to the 2024 list specifically, I think five of them are always losers (1, 2, 5, 7, and 10), three are nearly always losers (4, 8, and 9), and two are usually losers (3 and 6).
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Right of Publicity
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India Times ☛ Scarlett Johansson's OpenAI feud rekindles Hollywood fear of artificial intelligence
Johansson's blasting of OpenAI for using a sultry voice she called "eerily similar" to her performance in its public demonstrations of the newest version of ChatGPT is antagonizing some entertainment executives, amid discussions to work more closely on projects, people with direct knowledge told Reuters.
"It sure doesn't set up a respectful collaboration between content creators and tech giants," said one studio executive, calling OpenAI's actions "hubris."
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The Atlantic ☛ The Future of AI Voice Assistants Will Be Weird
Let’s get this out of the way: OpenAI’s voice assistant doesn’t sound that much like Scarlett Johansson. The movie star has alleged that, though she rebuffed multiple attempts by Sam Altman, the company’s CEO, to license her voice for the product that it demoed last week, the one it ended up using was “eerily similar” to her own. Not everyone finds the similarity so eerie—to my ear, it lacks her distinctive smoky rasp—but at the very least, the new AI does appear to imitate the playful lilts and cadences that Johansson used while playing Samantha, the digital assistant in the 2013 film Her. That’s depressing—and not only because OpenAI may have run roughshod over Johansson’s wishes, but because it has made such an unimaginative choice. Its new AI voice assistant is a true marvel of technology. Why is its presentation so mired in the past?
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TMZ ☛ Siri Voice Susan Bennett Says ScarJo Right to Lawyer Up Against OpenAI
Susan says even her own famous voice pops up in random places ... and she relies on her pals to keep an ear out for her likeness so her agent can track down those companies and make sure she gets paid for it.
Susan's got empathy for Scarlett over this whole ordeal and totally understands why she's getting lawyers involved after OpenAI -- the creator of ChatGPT -- unveiled an AI voice sounding very similar to hers, after she'd already declined the company's offer to be the actual voice of their product.
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Copyrights
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ Google, Meta cosy up to Hollywood for AI video
But a new crop of tools, including OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo, go a step further by promising to help filmmakers quickly create vivid, hyper-realistic clips based on just a few words of description. Their capabilities have elicited excitement and anxiety in Hollywood, where actors and writers staged a months-long strike last year over concern about how AI could take their jobs.
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Creative Commons ☛ Join the Creative Commons Board of Directors
The CC Board of Directors guides the strategic direction of Creative Commons, provides valuable expertise in key programmatic areas, and champions the activities of the organization. New board members will be joining a group of legal and policy experts, open advocates, and innovators as CC undergoes a strategy refresh and expands its commitment as the stewards of the commons and the CC licenses that enable sharing.
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Digital Music News ☛ The UK MCPS Says Mechanicals Topped $260M in 2023
The MCPS ensures its members are remunerated when their works are copied or reproduced in physical products, streaming, digital downloads, and broadcast—all of which carry a mechanical royalty for the underlying song composition.
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Digital Music News ☛ Can AI Music Be Done Ethically? — WIN Offers New Guidance
Thousands of independent music businesses make up WIN’s membership, and play a vital role in promoting new talent and diversity of genres and languages in the global music marketplace. The new principles highlight their call for consistent high standards across the globe, as well as to engage with AI developers to build a licensing marketplace that works for everyone.
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Walled Culture ☛ New research shows that the 2023 Canadian link tax has already failed – just like all the others
Remarkably, we already have clear evidence that Canada’s link tax has failed to achieve any of its objectives, thanks to some fascinating research contained in a preprint paper released by The Media Ecosystem Observatory, a collaboration between McGill and the University of Toronto. The whole thing is well-worth reading, since it contains some striking graphs that illustrate just how catastrophic Canada’s link tax has been for the newspaper industry that lobbied so hard for it. Canada’s Online News Act required “large digital intermediaries” to enter into negotiation with Canadian news outlets, supposedly to compensate them for posting news material on their platforms. As the new paper explains:
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Techdirt ☛ Taxing The Internet To Bail Out Media Won’t Solve The Fundamental Problems Of The Media Business
Hey Google, can you spare a few hundred million to keep Rupert Murdoch’s yacht afloat? That’s essentially what some legislators are demanding with their harebrained schemes to force tech companies to fund journalism.
It is no secret that the journalism business is in trouble these days. News organizations are failing and journalists are being laid off in record numbers. There have been precious few attempts at carefully thinking through this situation and exploring alternative business models. The current state of the art thinking seems to be either (1) a secretive hedge fund buying up newspapers, selling off the pieces and sucking out any remaining cash, (2) replacing competent journalists with terrible AI-written content or (3) putting all the good reporting behind a paywall so that disinformation peddlers get to spread nonsense to the vast majority of the public for free.
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Digital Music News ☛ ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus Says Creators ‘Must Act Now’ on AI
The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), the not-for-profit organization aiming to protect the rights and promote the interests of creators worldwide, has published its annual report. It should surprise no one with their finger on the pulse in the creative sector that AI technologies are at the forefront of the conversation when it comes to current trends.
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Torrent Freak ☛ 'UFC Ripper' Tool Can Download UFC Fight Pass Streams
While streaming dominates today's entertainment landscape, unauthorized downloads of UFC fights are widely available on pirate sites. Interestingly, a download option is now available for UFC fans who legally subscribe to UFC Fight Pass. The feature is available in the software "UFC Ripper" and its developer hopes that Dana White will allow the tool to exist.
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Torrent Freak ☛ Police Piracy Blacklist: No Celebrations For IWL's 10-Year Anniversary?
Operation Creative is a multi-agency anti-piracy initiative led by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, also known as PIPCU. The primary aim is to shut down pirate sites but if that proves elusive, depriving sites of advertising revenue by placing them on a blacklist is seen as the next best thing. The Infringing Website List (IWL) isn't made public but since there was no celebration of its recent 10-year anniversary, here's what the decade-old list has been getting up to lately.
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Monopolies/Monopsonies
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